Blog Topics

Musical Cycling?

Category: Public/Communities

Date: 13.05.2015

Time: 15.51

I want to start with a word of warning: cycling whilst listening to music is extremely dangerous and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. However, I have to credit listening to music with getting me back into cycling again.

After years of commuting to work on my bike, I had lost interest and motivation. It was hardest in the winter months, with the cold, the rain and worst of all the wind. I got to the stage of being a fair weather cyclist, which made me angry – I wanted to be better than that!

So I decided to ignore my own advice. This was mainly because my cycle route to work was a completely off-road experience, and I started listening to music with the sound turned down low enough so that I could still hear what was going on around me – the bells of other cyclists for example – but loud enough to take my mind off the horribly cold wind!

A short while after I discovered Podcasts, I know they’ve been around for a while but since listening to them on my commute to work they’ve really changed my cycling experience. During those rainy cold days I now can’t wait to get on my bike so I can catch up with my favourites – Josh Widdicombe on xfm, Frank Skinner on Absolute and Kermode and Mayo’s Wittertainment.

So ending where I started, although I’m not suggesting that people plug in their headphones whilst cycling, for me it has helped massively with my motivation and I don’t have to call myself a fair weather cyclist anymore!

Janine is PECT’s Resources Manager, and she has written on the topic of cycling to tie in with this year’s Peterborough Green Festival, which will be held on 23-31 May 2015.